Author: Tony Perry

IBM announced Watson for Cyber Security, a powerful new ally for organizations that want to protect their data from Net marauders.

The new offering bolsters the ability of information security pros to analyze the flood of information from the roughly 200,000 events that pour into their Security Operations Centers, or SOCs, every day.

About 20 percent of that flood is comprised of structured data that can be analyzed with database tools, but as much as 80 percent of it is unstructured data such as security blogs, white papers, Twitter feeds and forum threads. It’s data that contains valuable nuggets, but finding them is difficult.

“What Watson does is take all that information — structured, unstructured, as well as other information from the operations center — and put it in a cognitive system,” explained Denis Kennelly, vice president of development and technology at IBM Security.

“There it can be used to help the SOC operator to triage the security events,” he told TechNewsWorld.

While Watson can speed the analysis of data, its threat detection potential is limited, maintained Scott Miserendino, chief data scientist at Blu Vector.

Please join us for the 2017 Perth Data Management Workshop on August 10, 2017.

In response to the current economic conditions this year, the Perth Data Management Workshop (formerly known as Symposium) will once again be a one day event – August 10, 2017 – and we have highly discounted the registration rates to make it easier to attend.

We invite you to come participate as we work together towards collective action and community building. PPDM Association Events are specifically designed to facilitate collaborative idea sharing, discussion and networking. You can expect to participate in numerous discussions, workshops and activities. Learn from your colleagues’ experiences, ask questions, build relationships and make key face to face connections. Engage in dynamic sessions and attend information packed presentations. Continue reading Perth Data Management Workshop

After hearing evidence from regulators, community groups and the industry, another Senate Inquiry has reported with a clear majority of its voting members supporting oil and gas activities in the Great Australian Bight, subject to robust regulatory standards.

Big data investments continue to rise but are showing signs of contracting, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. The survey revealed that 48 percent of companies have invested in big data in 2016, up 3 percent from 2015. However, those who plan to invest in big data within the next two years fell from 31 percent to 25 percent in 2016.

The online survey was conducted in June 2016 among Gartner Research Circle members. In total, 199 members participated and shared their investment plans.

“Investment in big data is up, but the survey is showing signs of slowing growth with fewer companies having a future intent to invest,” says Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner. “The big issue is not so much big data itself, but rather how it is used. While organizations have understood that big data is not just about a specific technology, they need to avoid thinking about big data as a separate effort.”

Big data is a collection of different data management technologies and practices that support multiple analytics use cases. Organizations are moving from vague notions of data and analytics to specific business problems that data can address. “Its success depends on a holistic strategy around business outcomes, skilled personnel, data and infrastructure,” Heudecker adds.

While nearly three quarters of respondents said that their organization has invested or is planning to invest in big data, many remain stuck at the pilot stage. Only 15 percent of businesses reported deploying their big data project to production, effectively unchanged from last year (14 percent).

“One explanation for this is that big data projects appear to be receiving less spending priority than competing IT initiatives,” Heudecker says, noting that only 11 percent of respondents from organizations that have already invested in big data reported that their big data investments were as important, or more important, than other IT initiatives, while 46 percent stated that they were less important.

“This could be due to the fact that many big data projects don’t have a tangible return on investment that can be determined upfront,” Heudecker adds. “Another reason could be that the big data initiative is a part of a larger funded initiative. This will become more common as the term ‘big data’ fades away, and dealing with larger datasets and multiple data types continues to be the norm.”

A further factor to consider is the lack of effective business leadership or involvement in data initiatives. Too often, pilots and experiments are built with ad-hoc technologies and infrastructure that are not created with production-level reliability in mind.

“When it comes to big data, many organizations are still finding themselves at the crafting stage,” says Jim Hare, research director at Gartner. “Industrialization – and the performance and stability guarantees that come with it – have yet to penetrate big data thinking.”

Source: Reference: IDM
Iron Mountain’s legacy business in Australia will operate as ZircoDATA Pty Ltd following approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for the purchase of the domestic records and information management business by a consortium of experienced industry investors – Housatonic Partners and Dennis E. Barnedt.

Under the terms of the purchase agreement, which is expected to close on 31 October 2016, the newly-branded ZircoDATA will operate as a standalone going concern, with the business’ existing team continuing to service the company’s national client base using its extensive network of systems and intellectual property. ZircoDATA has 18 facilities and a workforce of more than 300, and will continue to be led by Managing Director, Wes Gleeson.

ZircoDATA’s ownership comprises a combination of highly-experienced industry operators and sophisticated investors – including Mr Barnedt. In partnership with Housatonic Partners, Dennis is a key player in the global records and information management industry, having founded, acquired, managed and developed leading companies in the sector across the United States and Europe.

Mr Barnedt, who will relocate to Melbourne in his role as Executive Chairman of ZircoDATA, said the decision to purchase the majority of Iron Mountain’s legacy Australian operations was “driven by the opportunity to acquire an established, well run and profitable business with a reputation as a leader in the Australian market.”

Mr Gleeson said the team’s customer-focused approach was a key factor in its success and would continue while the business transitions to the new brand name.

“We’ll continue servicing our strong client base to the level to which they’re accustomed,while looking to drive further growth as a fresh name on the domestic landscape”, he said.

“We’re the same business, with the same great team and we’ve got the backing to keep building our suite of services for the benefit of our customers. In the meantime, we’re working through the process of introducing the ZircoDATA brand to the market, including our soon-to-be rebranded website and other assets”, said Mr Gleeson.

“Our core business is very strong in physical records management and the industry still has a long horizon in this area, however, we recognise the shift to digitisation and how our customers create, use and store their information,” said Mr Gleeson.

“In terms of the future of the industry, it’s about the broader management of information, and that includes both hard copy and digital information. However, we will be very assertively entering back into the data protection market, and establishing that as part of our full product suite including traditional records management.”

“We have terrific capability in our imaging bureau for data capture and OCR, and we will continue to leverage that. But we’re also going to broaden out our thinking and offering around digital backup, cloud storage of data, and potentially other adjacent products and services that sit around information management” said Mr Gleeson.

Executive Chairman Dennis E. Barnedt confirmed his interest in seeking further growth in Australia and the region through new acquisitions. Mr Barnedt will be relocating to Australia after spending seven years in Europe to expand his companies’ operations there. “I’m committed to building our business in the region. This acquisition was the right one for us and provides a very strong base for our growth plans” said Mr Barnedt.